Agricultural History Review, Volume 70 Part 2 (2022), p. 329

The history of the peasantry has never been a first-priority topic for Polish historians. This is true despite the fact that rural communities made up the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Polish lands. While there are many factors contributing to what amounts to an astonishing hole in our knowledge (some would point to the relative scarcity of sources, while others would blame the post-war narrow-minded socialist ideology imposed on Polish historians, which made the history of the peasants seem uninteresting for some) it is without doubt that any mature attempt to improve such a problematic state of affairs should be greeted with attention. Tomasz Opaliński’s book Stan chłopski w Księstwie Warszawskim w świetle akt sądowych (The peasantry in the Duchy of Warsaw in light of juridical documents) is surely one of them.

The publication’s scope may seem narrow at first glance. Opaliński has chosen juridical sources to explore the situation of villagers in the period of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–15). However, they prove to be such an information-rich source that it would be worth devoting a separate book-sized study to them.

The first chapter provides a broad background for the functioning of the judiciary system and legal reforms in the Napoleonic era. Opaliński vividly sketches the problems faced by Polish society, and especially its peasants, on the eve of the Duchy’s existence. The literature review is broad, addressing scholarship from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. He also succinctly defines the key terms for the book, such as chłop (peasant) or stan (estate). Thanks to this, the chapter not only offers a comprehensive introduction to the following parts of the study, but has an introductory value on its own – not only for those interested in the history of peasants or the law, but generally for all those interested in early nineteenth-century Polish society and statehood.

The second chapter addresses the primary sources the book is based on. They are described diligently, depicting the scale of the sources preserved. Many of the courts’ documents have gone missing, with relatively few surviving until today. However, the material consulted by Opaliński enables interesting, yet geographically limited (mostly to the Wielkopolska region, around the towns of Śrem and Konin), conclusions. On several occasions, Opaliński proves to be capable of practically applying source criticism to his work, e.g., when he maturely refrains from putting forward far-reaching conclusions on social phenomena which may have been distorted in the available primary sources (p. 102).

The third chapter offers an analysis of the sources. Here, the material is organized around various social phenomena, such as crime, honour, family bonds and (il)literacy. One of the most interesting parts of this chapter is a suggestion that despite the high level of illiteracy amongst the peasantry, their numerical skills were very good, as shown in a few occasions described in the courts’ documents.

The fourth chapter continues the analysis of the sources, now concentrating on the relationships between the members of different estates and between the peasants themselves. While some of the conclusions provided in this part are rather unsurprising, such as the suggestion that many of the acts of violence between the noblemen and the peasants stemmed from tense relations between landowners and serfs, others are more innovative. Opaliński suggests that the peasants and the noblemen were the most violent members of society, with their levels of aggressive behaviour being noticeably higher than among other groups, such as Jews and townsmen. However, this hypothesis seems to require further argumentation.

The concluding chapter offers a brief summary of the previous parts and puts forward proposals for further research on other estates and historical periods. The main conclusion of the book, which appears clear from the sources consulted here, is that reforms introduced in the Polish lands during the Napoleonic period, especially those abolishing the judiciary system in which the peasants were by definition in a position of severe subordination to the noblemen, were by and large a success.

Nevertheless, the book has a few downsides. For instance, some of the conclusions could have been improved by comparing the primary sources with the secondary ones (such as reflections on the national identity on p. 115, which could be further developed in the light of Elwira Wilczyńska’s research on the relations between the peasants and Germans in the nineteenth century). But these remarks should not detract from the fact that this is a highly informative history of the Polish peasantry in the early nineteenth century.

Stan chłopski w Księstwie Warszawskim w świetle akt sądowych is a book worth reading, with its informative review of literature, careful source analysis and interesting conclusions. It also gives a good example of how historians can address the methodologically tricky topic of Polish peasants’ history. One may only hope that the author will continue his research and others will follow his pattern.